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Spain Ramps Up Job Efforts

MADRID—Spain is redoubling its efforts to lower the country's chronically high unemployment rate and labor costs this month, under intense pressure from the European Union and international investors.

The reform received new impetus from an EU agreement last week on measures to boost employment, competitiveness and budget discipline among euro-zone countries. Germany had demanded the measures—which it sees as a way to address some of the root causes of the euro zone's sovereign-debt crisis—in exchange for its support to expand...